International Law

Jocks and Magical Thinking

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One of the tough challenges for rational theorists is the prevalence of magical thinking, superstition among apparently reasonable thinking persons. 

Matt Hudson, writing at the Psychology Blogs:

" Wade Boggs ate chicken before every game during his career... Mike Hargrove, former Cleveland Indian first baseman, had so many time consuming elements in his batting ritual that he was known as "the human rain delay."

That's from an essay titled "Baseball Magic" by the anthropologist George Gmelch.

As I explained in my article on magical thinking, feeling powerless increases superstition.

Brains are pattern-finding organs, and when tossed into an unpredictable environment people will grasp for any straw they can get (maybe if I do A, B will happen.)

As Gmelch pointed out, batting and pitching are the most fertile activities for superstition in baseball; the factors differentiating a home run from a foul ball are so hard to master that players irrationally look for other ways to control the situation."

The one thing that I would add is many important decisions are one-shot games. There is no long run to appeal to. In these circumstances, unlike baseball games, our desire for even apparent control over events will lead us to embrace magical thinking. Unfortunately, even when water witching doesn't work better on average -we will embrace it as the only option because it appears to give us control over nature.

Full post as published by Misleading Advertising Law on October 02, 2008 (boomark / email).